I get a lot of questions on LinkedIn from post-undergrads looking to leave their current industry and go into tech — whether it be a Facebook/Google-type or a small startup.
And looking back on my own recruiting experience in the summer of 2019, I have to admit that I wouldn’t have gotten to my position now without the help of so many friends and mentors, helping me decode the jargon and navigate the amorphous process.
Now it’s time for me to pay it forward.
This article is a summary of the numerous conversations I’ve had with folks — and hopefully this serves as a good starting point for people like 24-year-old me on how to break into tech.
The end-to-end process
TLDR; here’s a super tactical five step process on breaking into tech
- Self-reflect: determine what you want in your next role
- Search: look up and consolidate job postings that fit your needs
- Tailor: mold your experiences to certain positions
- Network: gather intel on a company/team and get a foot in the door for applications
- Interview: prepare for interview process — usually varies by role
Before we double click on each step, I want to offer some upfront tips.
Tips to help you succeed in recruiting
The first tip I always tell people to properly set your expectations for the tech recruiting process.
If you went into consulting straight out of undergrad like me, you’ve only had one data point on how recruitment transpires. And tech recruitment looks completely different than that one data point.
Remember to stay flexible and adapt to each job’s process and timeline.
In consulting, you’re used to a ton of structure in the recruitment process. There’s deadlines for everything: you attend this on-campus info session, you drop your resume on this date, you have two rounds of in-person interviews on X and Y dates, you get a decision by Z date.
Every firm has more-or-less the same timeline, and you should hopefully land an offer before the end of fall semester senior year.
Tech recruitment (and really any post-college job process) has far less structure and visibility.
Job postings can be put up any time in the calendar year. Some reqs close in weeks, some are open for months. Some jobs have three rounds, some have five. Sometimes you’ll have to do a take-home assignment (I affectionately called it homework). Sometimes you won’t hear from employers for weeks before advancing to the next round. Exploding offer deadlines are negotiable.
Remember to stay flexible. And adapt to each job’s process and timeline. Literally every company is different on how they handle recruitment.
Second tip is to be upfront about your needs.
At this stage of your career, recruiting is much more about fit than it is about competency.
Speaking from my own experience with consulting recruitment, I saw getting an offer as a validation of my hard work in college.
A job offer was the culmination of all the hours that I put into my undergrad career. If my GPA was good enough and my student group positions were high enough and if I cased hard enough, then I should be rewarded with a job offer — even better if it’s one from a prestigious firm.
If you’re like me, then you need to throw that mindset away.
Does it matter if you get a job offer if you’re not getting paid what you think is fair? If you don’t get along with your boss? If you don’t think you’re learning from your role?
Be upfront about all those things: ask about compensation early in the process, ask about the company and team culture, get a casual 1:1 on the calendar with your would-be manager to see if you get along with him/her.
Lastly, because you’re trying to solve for a good employee-company fit, do as much research as you can about the company and team.
Google their name — do you like what you see? Have they raised a new round? Have they achieved some previously unimaginable milestone?
Go to their careers page. Do their values resonate with you?
Play with their product if you can. Is it fun, beautiful, or easy to use?
Reach out to your network and candidly learn what’s actually going on in the organization.
Use your Q&A time during the interview wisely. What do you want to learn from the hiring manager or other members of the team?
Your job is to gather the biggest fact base you can on each company before you make the decision to join.
Step 1: reflect on your needs and desires
The first step is probably the hardest, but it requires you to look inward and analyze your own life.
Ask yourself two questions:
- Why do I want to leave my current job?
- What do I want to get out of my new job?
And I invite you to not be overly tactical about your answers.
The first pass will probably include answers like: I want more comp, I want better work-life balance, or I want a flashy title.
The second pass will likely unearth deeper insight: I want to help people, I want to be an expert in this domain, I want to work less hours so I can focus on my hobbies.
Each subsequent pass will allow you to see more clearly on the needs that you want to solve for.
To illustrate, here’s what I gathered (albeit paraphrased for brevity) from my self-reflection when I was recruiting — stack ranked in order of importance:
- Mission: I wanted to work to help better people’s lives
- Innovation: I want to work on a hard problem that hasn’t been solved yet
- Industry: I want to be in fintech or crypto to build domain knowledge
- People: I want to work with smart and kind people who push me
- Work-life balance: I want to work less than 60 hours per week so that I have time to sleep, exercise, and maintain a healthy mental and physical wellbeing
Looking back, I would’ve added three additional factors to consider: size of company (<20, 50–500, 500+), enterprise vs. consumer as the customer, and how well I got along with my boss.
When I’m talking to folks that want to get into tech, many of them say that they want to go into tech but they don’t really know why, and thus, they’re stuck with a long list of companies to apply to.
Doing the upfront work of understanding what you want will help you narrow down your search and make you more focused on what you’re solving for in the recruitment process.
As a side bonus, intense reflection also gives you more clarity in your life beyond work :)
Step 2: search for a baseline of jobs
This step is pretty straightforward. Now that you have a sense of what you want to solve for, go find companies that fit those criteria.
For me, I used three approaches to exhaustively find companies: general knowledge of the fintech space (big players like Stripe, Robinhood, Chime); keyword search on sites like Indeed, LinkedIn, AngelList; and looking at lists of innovative fintech companies (e.g., Forbes, CNBC).
I filtered out any companies that I wasn’t interested in — in industries like insurance (sorry), companies that were too big (Visa), and products that didn’t really inspire me (payday lending).
Go to each company’s website and see if it sparks interest in applying. Go to their jobs page and see their open roles and what appeals to you.
Keep a Google Sheet or Notion doc of all the jobs that you’re interested in.
Step 3: tailor your experiences
This is a step that I admittedly did not do, but looking back I definitely should have.
Remember when I said that every company/job is different?
Given that, it probably makes sense to highlight the experiences that best match the job description and resonate with the company.
What that means tactically — you need to have multiple resumes that highlight different experiences.
If you’re applying to a startup, you’ll probably want to highlight your independence and ability to innovate. Maybe you’ll have a bullet of a time where you executed a project “end-to-end”, or maybe you’ll talk about how you can “add structure to an ambiguous problem”.
If you’re applying to a company in growth mode, they probably care less about that. Maybe you’ll want to add something showcasing how “analytical” you are, or how you once increased a metric by “2.5x”.
In an ideal world, you would be able to highlight all the awesome work you’ve done. Unfortunately, you only have an 8.5-by-11 sheet of paper to work with, so you’re going to have to prioritize.
“Jimmy, how am I suppose to know what a company is looking for?” you may be asking.
Good question. Two answers:
- Go to the company careers page. If they’re not too early stage, they should have a page that highlights their company values. If they put “no assholes”, highlight how collaborative you are. If they put “self-starter”, talk about a time you drove something by yourself
- Read the job description. I know — it’s boring as hell and full of corporate speak, but it’s actually quite transparent about what the hiring manager is looking for. If it says “lead competitive market analysis”, it’s probably a good idea to talk about a time you did that (only if you actually did, please don’t lie). “Conduct quantitive analysis” — show a time you built a model.
Step 4: network to learn and for a referral
This step is also straightforward, although may be uncomfortable for some folks.
You need to find employees (or former employees) of the companies that you’re applying to — with two objectives in mind: (1) you want to learn even more about the company — especially its culture, how employees are treated, how mobility works; (2) you want a referral.
On the second objective, it may seem uncomfortable at first, but a referral is imperative to getting an interview.
Don’t believe me? 30–50% of job hires in the U.S. are from referrals. There’s a reason why 70% of U.S. employers have a formal employee referral program — companies get higher quality candidates and close reqs quicker.
“A referral who gets an interview has a 40% better chance of getting hired than other candidates” — Quartz
So you need to cold reach out to some of these people and ask them for their time. Most people are happy to talk about their experiences, and surprisingly most people are also happy to refer randos as well, because they can get upwards to $10,000 for a successful referred hire.
Step 5: prepping and actually interviewing
Interviewing will look wildly different depending on the role, and there are many far better resources on the Internet than what I can offer you right now.
Broadly speaking, expect many rounds, expect homework, and expect case interviews. Memorize your resume — of course.
If you want to really differentiate yourself from other candidates, do as much research as you can about the company. As a hiring manager, I can confidently say that it is rare and very apparent when a candidate shows up to an interview and actually knows what the company does.
To start, just go on the company website or go a quick Google search. Learn about the industry, products, and business model. How does the company make money? How has it grown (or shrunk) in the last year? Who are the customers? Why do customers choose this product over competitors?
To go above and beyond, do a little thought experiment and project where the company is going. You can also get that intel from conversations with current employees in your initial networking outreach.
- Play around with the product, and write a PRD on how you’d improve it — based on the priorities and objectives of the company. For example, if customer activation is really important for a SaaS product, what features would you ship to improve the onboarding experience?
- Understand the total addressable market. Where would you play next? How would you acquire customers?
Here are some great role-dependent resources that I’ve found helpful:
An offer is not the end
Like what I previously mentioned — a job is all about fit. And an offer is not the be-all and end-all.
If you got an offer, pat yourself on the back and chill for a few days; you deserve it.
Then you’re going to need to schedule time with the recruiter and discuss two things: comp negotiation and follow-up meetings.
For comp, always negotiate. It’s helpful to have a benchmark for industry standards based on your level, role, and industry.
I’ve found that earlier stage startups are more flexible with their compensation bands/tiers. Know that there are many levers to comp: base salary, annual performance bonus, equity, relocation, and others.
For follow-up meetings, I use this time to learn as much as I can about my manager and teammates in a non-interview setting. Set up tons of 1:1s, and see if you vibe with them. What do they like to do for fun as a team? What are the hours like? What does culture mean and look like for them?
For me, my relationship with my manager is incredibly important. How much autonomy does he/she/they give me? How do I see myself growing from their guidance and mentorship? What kind of work will I have? What are the priorities for the year?
Only after I’ve squeezed as much information as possible from these meetings do I pull the trigger on signing an offer.
